What Web-conferencing tools have you used?

We have been reviewing products recently and one area I would highlight is the differences in pricing when you get into the details.

Make sure you are clear on the number of callers, where they are coming from, if you wish to record (and where do you store the recordings), etc. Not every option is included......Caveat emptor as they say. Also; use the trials and run some tests.....

There are certainly a lot of options. The US Tech Soup has a great synopsis of 15 of the products. I believe it is a Webinar using ReadyTalk.

Dan.

We have used gotomeeting for a while, but now switched to Webtrain. We get better pricing and a lot more features for our web conferencing dollars.

For those of you interested, Techsoup has some good resources if you want to learn more about Web conferencing tools.  Here are a few of these in particular:
 

• Getting to know Online Conferencing Tools (recorded webinar by TS)
• A Few Good Online Conferencing Tools (article by Idealware)
• 10 Steps for Planning a Successful Webinar

Myself, I've taken part in a few webinars here on TechSoup.  They use ReadyTalk and I find it to be a pretty good platform.

Yann

Another tool/ option to consider is the appliance approach to conferencing. It's different because its not hosted online, you actually own the hardware so there are no monthly fees and what not. It also seems to be more secure. I did some research and the one i found the seems to be the most bang for your buck is a 4-in-1 appliance the has conferencing, webinars, remote support, and remote access. Seems to be a competitor of Webex, since they cover all 4 areas as well.

Here's there site: http://www.rhubcom.com

The spreadsheet looks like it's from 2006, which is when the article was written. Too many changes, and too many new products on the market for it to still be useful. I would absolutely love a good chart - we've tried a couple of platforms, but really doing the research takes time, and it's not always obvious what you are really getting for your money.

We have been looking at a lot of these, but they all seem to fall short on the video conferencing.   We are looking to have possibly up to 20 participants who want to broadcast video simultaneously. Not as concerned about the audio, will probably use a separate audio-conferencing tool in conjunction unless everyone wants to invest in a headset

Adobe seems to accomodate large amount of cams, as well as hearme.com (part of Paltalk). I think some of these get really expensive when the minutes add up or the monthly subscriptions are a bit much.

StreamAPI is something I will be looking at, where you can build your own custom cam pages. I think it comes to like .45 per Gigabyte of data streamed. will report back on that one...

Thinking of possible hardware solutions, esp for groups of people (Webcams can really only broadcast 1-2 people well), but those solutions get upwards of the "thousands of dollars" per site I think

Not even going to mention telepresence or ISDN :)

Thanks for reading and for your feedback. I think the video part definitely is the "holy grail" for web conferencing. My only experience with video is via Webex but haven't seen more three simultaneous feeds. I sort of think that there is a healthy ecosystem of services available for individual needs, which explains the coexistence still of so many players in the field. For NPOs especially they have a lot of relatively affordable options. Do let us know how StreamAPI works out for you.

-Kevin